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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Avenue of Comic Stars

Inspired by Hollywood Boulevard, several Hong Kong Government led organizations set up the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars at the waterfront of Tsim Sha Tsui to honor celebrities from Hong Kong's movie and entertainment industry.

Cloud at Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars 步驚雲@香港漫畫星光大道

Perhaps encouraged by the success of Avenue of Stars, the Hong Kong Government decided to sponsor the set up of the Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars at Kowloon Park. Of course, the official reason is to foster the development of the comic industry in Hong Kong. Huge plastic figures are erected at Kowloon Park as permanent display.

Guo Jing at Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars

郭靖@香港漫畫星光大道

Hong Kong does have a comic industry. Whether it is a sizable industry is really subject to argument. Majority of the younger generations in Hong Kong tend to prefer Japanese comics over local comics. Occasionally there will be one or two local comic or carton characters that become famous. However, for the general public to be able to name the characters is one thing, knowing the story line of where the characters came from is another.

Hero Wah at Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars 華英雄@香港漫畫星光大道

As I walked thru the Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars (香港漫畫星光大道 in Chinese), I tried to test whether I know these characters or not. While I fully expect that not all the characters are as famous as the Japanese Cartoon Character Doraemon, I was only to able to name a handful of these supposed to be famous characters.

Dragon Lord

Bruce Lee 李小龍@香港漫畫星光大道

Wang Xiao Hu 王小虎@香港漫畫星光大道

Furthermore, the "drawing" style of the characters are quite different. The descriptions next to the comic artist's handprints hinted that these characters have a huge difference in age! They were given birth by comic artists from different generations; created in different decades. Having said that, it is enjoyable to see huge Comic figures at Kowloon Park.

Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars 香港漫畫星光大道

I need to refer to the Official Site of the Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars for the name of most cartoon characters. One can roughly divide these characters into three categories: (1) Cute-Cutie characters based on simple shapes (2) Muscular warrior characters that looks like Marvel Superheros (3) Unusual and hard to explain characters with unique features.